Would an ANUSite perhaps corner me into somehow admitting that I was listening for social status and covering it up with what I genuinely believed was the truth?

You were obviously listening to them for social status, as evidenced by your desperate cries for approval among the "elite" for your newfound kvlt taste. The only thing you ever genuinely liked was probably Nickelback's "How You Remind Me" when you were 12. Your posts can be basically translated to "I'm such a poor lost lonely sheepie, please tell me what exactly to believe in".

In retrospect, I can say fairly accurately that there was definitely some element of appeal for social status. But it wasn't the most important aspect and I feel came entirely secondary to the actual sonic experience. The trick was allowing myself to succumb to an indiscriminate aesthetic philosophy where I grew myself more and more accustomed to mediocre music and would in turn take a liberal approach and defend all art for the sentiment behind it. Now I see that even though I thought I had a superior attention span to most (as evidenced personally by being able to pay attention to whole Dream Theater albums at a time), it was entirely the opposite. I was so easily bored by music that I required some sort of change every 10-15 seconds. I would listen to a lot of 'true' metal and be off put initially because I never allowed myself to hear the literal progression and thus would never allow myself to even hear the transition to the next chapter of the narrative.

As for approval among the "elite", well I won't deny that there is a certain kinship that I feel to people who think similarly to how I do. Feels good to challenge myself here and the difference is that I'm always on my toes and revising all sorts of thoughts as I read new perspectives from the users here. With that sort of challenge to my already established line of thought, I feel a stronger kinship to the ANUS boards than I have ever felt at UG even though I have posted there infinitely more. Just makes more sense here since people like to uncover the shit from under the rug instead of letting it sit there like so many do.

I can't say I'm on the fence anymore, but as for certain things like social relations (especially with the opposite sex) and political issues (which I feel entirely overwhelmed and uneducated about), I am still revising. Alas, I feel confident that the general philosophy that most have a consensus here about is what is right, and more so what's intuitively right to me.

I wholeheartedly agree with istaros regarding the unjustifiably absent. However, also worth noting perhaps is the lack of certain other releases. Perhaps some will be questionable, but all of them are quality acts at their best and valuable.

I know what some of you are thinking: this is hipster metal with no substance. And I have read some things about this band from members here that verify that sentiment. However, I was surprised to see some less than hostile remarks towards their music. As a matter of interest, their first EP is actually linked from the Audiofile part of the forum and their early material/obZen is occasionally given a thumbs up. I am curious to see if anybody else thinks that they're more than a gimmick as the title suggests?

Personally, I was turned off by their music at a time when I was still uninitiated in the extreme and thus by nature it seemed as if it were only noise. After I gained an ear for it and could not only stomach, but appreciate the nuances of what extreme metal had to offer, I naturally gained the ability to retain an attention span when it came to just about any type of music I came into contact with. After I heard Meshuggah on some occasion a few years ago, I started to appreciate the simplest thing about their music: it was just downright heavy/badass. And it was so because of its ability to play around with repetitive grooves and syncopate these grooves around the core 4/4 hi-hat rhythm set out by Haake's cymbals. With that framework to work around, I started to appreciate the subtleties and idiosyncracies of not only each album, but each song and how it ultimately seemed to progress. Like many people agree, they create a very empty aura, entirely devoid of human emotion, turning their craft into something that feels like the work of some spastic, yet well-oiled machine droning on without complaint in what could be described only as a mindless task. With that imagery in mind, it's not hard to see how its charm is in the depersonalization and in turn of its reduction of the importance of the individual. It reminds us of how mindless and empty and machine-like we are. You could even say that it transcends the leftist utopia that many want to feel good about striving for and places us as nonexistent observers of a dystopic universe devoid of our human flaws. It does so by mesmerizing us with its ambience and sheer impact coupled with the rhythmic use of melody that is employed in the right occasions. And then just when you've felt like an epiphany is about to be had, you're placed right back into the midst of the same droning repetition you initially started off with. Yet, somehow you feel that while you may have wasted another day or week or year, that intuitively you've been gifted with some knowledge that's able to allow you to overcome the stale stupor of your everyday existence.

On the other hand, a lot of other people seem to disregard the band for varying reasons:-It's too technical and pretentious-It's all predictable and too similar-There's nothing really going on

Yet, that seems to me their strength, just misconstrued as weaknesses. They're a band who are at heart very simple, but choose one very limited area to expand in complexity. In doing so, it feels to me like they've absolutely acknowledged that they're simple and not hiding the fact. Instead, this amplified focus on one already imperative element in popular music is brought to the forefront. It basically inverts the colors of the musical canvas from something vivid to something that seems drab and grey and empty, and in that emptiness you can see where there should be a vivid instead of lackluster color. In the predictability and repetition, you're forced to forget about what you naturally would find interesting. Stripped down to its most basic elements and allowing the rhythm to almost solely drive the music forward, the small amount of variation and the relatively long time it takes for it to 'progress' is something that I find one learns to appreciate.

Anyways, perhaps someone could just read this all and say "well, that's a load of crap that you're using to mask the fact that there's no substance and rationalizing the fact that there isn't anything there as a positive thing". And that's a perfectly valid thought. It's also perfectly valid to think that Meshuggah could do something more. But still, there's something so ultimately satisfying in anticipating their brand of breakdowns. For instance, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2stcnTvHlY in the moments leading up to 3:36. Peace and then the sounds of loud machinery, then back to peace. Further on the moments leading up to 4:57. I find that if I let my mind drift like I do with Skepticism, I can space out and just be at general peace with the mechanics of the world.

I'm wondering what the general consensus on some bands are since I've had them in my digital collection for a while now and used to be into them to a lesser/greater degree, but after throwing a lot of rubbish out and rediscovering the classic/death black, I'd love to know what is worth checking out again.

If I were you, I'd delete them all, simply to be free of the baggage. Go for something totally different, study a bit of music theory, play some instrument... none of us have a long enough lifetime to systematically go through all metal there is, classic or not. What you need to discover is the few important ideas that tie the music to the philosophy, and your personal decisions in life, whether or not they serve a consensus. The only real consensus is Will, the continual one.

An interesting thought. I've actually done something to this extent in reading around the site and traversing the fretboard/keys/skins of my instruments. I know I can't go through everything, but this thread seemed like a useful resource I could take advantage of. I generally know what I'm looking for and wasn't surprised to see that a band like Candlemass was revered (even around here). On the other hand, oftentimes bands tend to straddle the line between having substance and appearing to have substance. And as was the case with a good deal of those bands, I'd definitely remembered hearing them and not wanting to delete them, at least not at the time.

Of course I have my mind, but it's a tool that can be sharpened to better understand why certain music is just fundamentally more valuable than other music. Intuitively I feel like certain bands are useless. On the other hand, there is the part of me that wonders if I'm not seeing a band like Manilla Road the most accurate way in the sense that while they may have been enjoyable to me in the past, I can't help but wonder if all that's appealing about them is their old school charm and rock-tinted cliches sprawled about their songs with seemingly no regard to creating more than a 'rocking', predictable tune that wails about and hits perhaps the same weaknesses that a band like Alice in Chains used to hit for me. And there, another band which seems to be another sleezy hard rock outfit which still holds something slightly more than nostalgia for me.

I'm wondering what the general consensus on some bands are since I've had them in my digital collection for a while now and used to be into them to a lesser/greater degree, but after throwing a lot of rubbish out and rediscovering the classic/death black, I'd love to know what is worth checking out again. Also, sorry for the length of the list. I would estimate that less than 10 if not less than 5 percent of these bands are actually worth delving into again, so maybe just list what's definitely worth it and perhaps the semi-decent material separately.

Interesting thing about the sheepishness. Do you find you worry about breaking yourself from sheepishly following one ideology (like the thought prominent on UG and in pop culture) just to end up sheepishly following another? (thoughts commonly expressed on this forum).

I think those sorts of fears could be applied to any given person. We naturally want to pave a way that is unequivocally ours.

It's not a far stretch to believe on an intuitive level that much of what's on ANUS is true. However, I often find myself thirsting for proof. One case out of many being the infamous "hipster" card thrown out at various bands. It was only roughly 3 months ago that the music of Isole and Blut aus Nord "graced" my ears and many years ago that I grew to love Pink Frothy AIDS. While on an intuitive level, I do feel like these bands play on some surface aesthetic, I don't understand how metalheads listen to them for status. I don't know if I'm an exception to the rule, but when I enjoyed those bands it wasn't because I felt "kvlter" or "smarter" than others. I didn't care. The music spoke to me on an emotional level. At the least, I believed that it was simply my interaction with the music and nothing to do with social gain. On the other hand, I've found those bands to be boring and unable to stand the test of time. Would an ANUSite perhaps corner me into somehow admitting that I was listening for social status and covering it up with what I genuinely believed was the truth? Not that I don't necessarily believe in the possibility of that explanation, but it's more of a guilt trip in context of "seeing past" the surface aesthetic of those bands. And then, with Isole and BaN I can't seem to quite put into words why their music is "hipster" or just generally drab. I can see symbols of emotion abundant in their works, but no obvious mark of ignoring the fundamental atmosphere of their historical counterparts.

But, as ANUS was becoming a recurrent theme of discussion on my internet community of choice, I naturally couldn't help but try to understand it.

What community are you from?

The Ultimate Guitar metal forum community. A place where the slightest mention of "hipster" or "objective" deems you as either a troll or a sheep who follows ANUS principles like its part of some unquestioned dogma.

It's this strange purgatory really, and on the other hand an assault on the very ideas that have shaped my existence up until this point. A purgatory because I am utterly confused about how to lead a life of virtue and ascertain a certain "higher" level of existence, bound by the apathy that results from excessive and cyclical questioning of one's own purpose on this earth. And an assault because I am well aware that cognitive dissonance is rearing its much needed head into my fruitless existence and making me feel like a moron for not doing anything of use.

Now, I don't say this as a fatalist, but rather as somebody who has on one hand questioned the world around him, been disgusted with its sorry state for years, but on the whole become accustomed to fatalist attitudes. It's hypocritical to put it frankly, that I don't act on some of the beliefs and that in and of itself may make me just as bad as some of the people I have criticized, but on the other hand I wish to work out a healthy, productive regimen for myself. It's what feels like the college student's equivalent of mid-life crisis. Student-crisis, I suppose you could call it. Or youth-crisis. Whichever.

The picture I am trying to paint is one of an individual who has had ANUS and its respective philosophies and mannerisms on the horizon, but initially as nothing more than the incoherent, pseudo-pretentious ramblings of an elaborate internet troll, intent on luring as many pseudo-pretentious individuals who would "fall prey" and ultimately fight for a cause that's not there. I will save the life story and just say that my introduction to metal started after a chance encounter with an unlikely friend who exposed me to Master of Puppets and from there, my curiosity grew to the reaches of internet metal communities, where I would eventually come to "understand" metal and the philosophies behind subjectivity, taste, etc. I had many bouts of dissonance as my ideas of what music was supposed to be like were challenged. But at the end of each one, I still believed the "different strokes for different folks" mentality. It seemed virtuous, liberal and honorable among other amiable qualities and values. But, as ANUS was becoming a recurrent theme of discussion on my internet community of choice, I naturally couldn't help but try to understand it. After all, when somebody says something so many times, you're bound to start believing in its viability as a valid outlook.

And so, skip forwards to now where that individual has spent many nights reading the articles, lurking the boards, etc. It's already been many months that I have began to understand the objectivity of art and of the many ideas that surround this controversial site. I suppose I could simply ask towards navigation. I don't take pride in not being as resourceful as I might be, but I found the site very overwhelming. There are so many ideas spread around here that it ultimately becomes a chore to go through. So I was hoping that somebody with a penchant for helping a brother out could set me straight on where to start and where to go from there. As well, some of the questions looming over my head remain unanswered and keep me glued to this senseless, apathetic state:

-How does one become more adept at understanding the inconsistencies around himself? I say this in light of the fact that had I not read ANUS material, my mindset would be unchanged to this day. But now that I read about the ways in which crowds and governments are in place to manipulate the individual, it dawns on me that I still don't understand this in depth. I'm inclined to believe that we're sheep, but when I desire to try to convey the validity of some of these topics to others, I find myself unable to give the whole picture, which in itself renders me unable to express what now seems obvious in a sense. And it becomes a nuisance that I can't explain something that I seem to believe in and understand. I wish I could explain this point better without coming off as entirely clueless, but this is the situation.

-The next points stem from the previous in that it deals with how do I do my part? First of all, is the understanding of the previously mentioned concepts, yes. But more in specific is understanding the practical methods in which I could apply that knowledge. I noticed a thread by Conservationist about the ethical approach to life and it got to thinking about how I carry myself as an individual. As well, how do I treat others? I remember a thread somewhere here that consisted of a member talking down to an American Idol fan who didn't "understand" Beethoven, and thus was treated with contempt. However, some of the other users had a consensus in which a medium between contempt and helpfulness was established, but not concrete to me. In that, my question of how do I treat others still stands. I find that many students I meet my own age have little motivation or aspiration to truly learn and understand their world. Like most, they are content with their unchallenged lives, their sole existence watching Lost religiously, binge drinking and getting stoned to escape the dull state of existence. I am personally not the most enthusiastic and outgoing myself, but perhaps I could "convert" others to a more positive approach. On the other hand there is the question of "do I 'convert' others?" or do I simply try to pander to their shallow sensibilities? Then there is the question of, what's morally or ethically right? Are morals and ethics so absolute or will whatever means I approach others with not matter? I am leaning towards it seriously mattering, just it being a question of committal: do I challenge the beliefs of those who are so content in the world they want to believe exists? The entirely subjective, trivial world of inconsequential and symbolic interactions with the faceless corporations and institutions in our society?

I apologize for the rambling, but I'm afraid it's the best I could come up with in my confused state. In fact, I feel like I may have come off as possibly more hypocritical than I established myself as in that I claim to side with much of what ANUS says, but being utterly unable to explain and thus consider myself as an advocate of the ideas here. In a sense, I feel like I haven't fully transcended and gone above my sheepish state of old and still remain a puppet of the crowd. It's as if the strings which control me are invisible, but my perception of there being some force at the forefront of my consciousness, and my physical body remaining in compliance with the strings and oblivious to the true state of the puppet master that wields them.